The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has named Alexander Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 44, of Ukiah as the father investigators believe killed his two children and then himself Oct. 9 at a home on Old River Road near Ukiah.
Autopsies on all three were done Wednesday. Gonzalez-Gonzalez’s preliminary cause of death was asphyxia due to hanging, and the manner of death was suicide, Capt. Quincy Cromer wrote in an updated release.
The Sheriff’s Office isn’t releasing the preliminary cause or manner of death for the children, a 14-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother, “at this stage of the ongoing investigation,” Cromer wrote. Their names are still being withheld because of their age.
Final findings for all three won’t be released until the forensic pathologist finishes the reports from the autopsies and coroner’s investigations, according to the release Thursday.
Deputies and investigators identified and notified the legal next of kin for all three, the update says. The Sheriff’s Office had said Oct. 10 it would hold the father’s name until that was done and his autopsy was complete.
“Initial evidence and interviews indicate the adult male killed the two children and then committed suicide at the residence,” Cromer wrote in the first release, on Oct. 10. The Sheriff’s Office hasn’t released a possible motive.
The call came in about 10:19 a.m. Oct. 9, a 911 call transferred from the California Highway Patrol about an unknown emergency at a home in the 6800 block of Old River Road. The caller had found two children there who needed medical help.
People at the property put the children in their vehicle and drove north on Old River Road to meet emergency medical crews near the Mendocino County Office of Education, just south of Talmage Road. The children were unresponsive and had no pulse. First responders did CPR and other advanced lifesaving work, but both children were declared dead.
Officers who went to the house found their father dead.
Sheriff’s detectives got a search warrant for the house, processed it for evidence and interviewed family members, witnesses and others. Investigators have contacted everyone they believe was involved and “determined there are no outstanding suspects and no continuing threat to the community,” Cromer wrote in the first release.
The case is still being actively investigated, according to the update. Anyone with information can call the Sheriff’s Office at 707-463-4086, option 1, or leave an anonymous tip at 707-234-2100.
Help is available for anyone struggling: call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or call the Mendocino County crisis line, open 24 hours a day, at 1-855-838-0404.
This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.